Blake wedged his staff between both the two mana cultivators, who he decided to call Hammer Boy and Sword Girl in his mind. With a Black Palm, he launched them both apart, then directed the Serpent’s Cloak to his throat.

  Cultivators had a way of enhancing their voices, which surely came from Augmentation techniques. Blake could do the same.

  “Fight me one on one,” he said, “if you’re truly wishing to test yourselves. If you truly wish to honour the purpose of the tournament.”

  They both skidded to a halt in the sand, then jumped up and glanced each other. In that moment, Blake realized he’d just given Hammer Boy and Sword Girl a reason to form a temporary truce with each other.

  “Ah, shit…” he muttered.

  The two of them charged at once, holding their weapons out in front of them. Hammer Boy swung from above again, forcing Blake to the side, where Sword Girl’s blade was waiting. Blake swatted it down with a heavy strike to the fuller, and it sliced into the sand. The blade itself was sharp enough to cleave a perfect gash in the floor—not just pushing apart the sand, but cutting the individual grains where it could.

  “Very impressive,” Blake said, locking eyes with her. He tried to stomp the sword out of her grasp, but she turned the blade up, threatening to cut off his foot.

  He stepped to the side, then sprang back. But he couldn’t let this go on too long, or he was going to get himself fried by a stray technique that he wasn’t paying attention to. As Hammer Boy unleashed another heavy strike, swinging his hammer sideways at Blake’s ribs, Blake plunged his staff down and vaulted off it, closing the distance between them and aiming a kick right at Hammer Boy’s forehead.

  He could’ve gone for the nose, but that would have been too mean. Too destructive for no good reason—especially when Blake had signed up to this tournament specifically to fight.

  The man fell backward, and his head hit the sand with a thud. But with cultivators' enhanced bodies, there was no risk of it killing him. It didn't even threaten to knock him out. Blake jumped on top of him and pressed his foot down on the man's chest. "Yield."

  But Sword Girl rushed in from the side, trying to knock Blake off. He deflected the attack with a well-practiced strike, then wrapped his staff around her arm and twisted until she dropped the blade. "You too. Yield."

  He narrowed his eyes, and after a second of consideration—and after Blake gave her arm an extra twist and planted his foot more firmly on Hammer Boy’s chest, they both nodded. He let Hammer Boy stand up and released Sword Girl’s arm.

  For a moment, Blake grimaced. Sure, he’d been nice. He’s activated the Honour trigram and made it work. But something felt like it was missing. He hadn’t really worked that hard, nor had he really wanted to fight those two.

  And he remembered what Ethbin had told him: don’t get in a fight if you’re not willing to kill your opponent.

  Should he really be in this tournament at all? He wasn’t exactly facing mortal enemies in stunning feats of bravery, and he wasn’t doing anything of worth for the crowd. By all metrics they could see, his two opponents had just fought more honourably than him. They’d worked together and genuinely tried to uphold their little alliance.

  But he needed the hacksilver, no matter how much he hated to say it.

  Did that mean he was nothing but a low mercenary?

  He grimaced. It wasn’t really true, either. He needed the silver to get more technique slates, to then learn Shaping, to then use it to steal the manaship. To help his growing Secret Society.

  All of it had a purpose, just it took a few more layers of abstraction to get there.

  He wiped the grimace off his face and instead channelled his source of willpower. His choice to build something else, a new world somewhere out of the cultivators’ reach.

  The qualifying round wasn’t over yet. A different contestant rushed toward Blake, holding out a long spear, and Blake knocked it aside. He jumped over the man, then struck him on the back, but he didn’t care to keep fighting to the bitter end.

  He had control. He didn’t just have to kill people now, no matter what Ethbin’s jaded perspective was. Blake could, but he didn’t have to.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He continued circling the edge of the arena, not attracting attention and not seeking out fights, but just trying to wait out the timer. For today, there was no need for anything fancy. He doubted there was going to be much hacksilver going around for the qualifying round anyway. And for his next fight, he wanted to be underestimated so that more people bet against him.

  More people would lose their bets, more hacksilver would change hands, and the house would skim more off the top—which he would get a cut of. The worse people thought he was going to do, the more hacksilver he would earn from a victory.

  So, when a pair of Scaleslingers faced him, wearing their scale mail armour and helmets that hid most of the features of their faces, Blake tried to just navigate away from them. Now wasn’t the time for their grievances.

  They didn’t let him. A third scaleslinger stepped up behind him.

  “You said to save it for the arena,” one of the sect members said. Blake couldn’t even tell which one it was, and he didn’t really care. All of them were Core Formation stage one, according to his senses.

  “Right,” Blake said. “But I’m not really looking to make a name for myself at the moment. Unless you’d like to compensate me…”

  “Compensate you?” one of the Scaleslingers demanded.

  “You know, uh, pay me off,” Blake said with a half-joking grin. “I need the money.”

  But he reminded himself that he also needed the prestige and public exposure the tournament would give him, not just the money. If he took a bribe right now, he’d lose half of his reason for being here.

  “What do you take us for?” one of the Scaleslingers snapped, stomping his foot down. “Some common mercenaries?”

  “Well, uh, you’d be paying the mercenary.” Blake cast them a grin. He couldn't resist making the comment, especially since he was almost a hundred percent certain they’d never go for it.

  “Silence!” one of the Scalslingers demanded. “It’s time for you to suffer. You’ve made our sect look weak.”

  “Well…” Blake shrugged. “I’ve got news for you: it’s going to get worse.”

  But he couldn’t worry about that today. For the moment, it was better that he looked weak. It would make his eventual victory against these guys—not today, but at some point in the future—all the more real in the crowd’s eyes.

  “We’ll see about that,” one of the Scaleslingers said. He pounded his axe on his shield, preparing to strike. Another aimed a spear at his back, and his bravery surged. Fighting three on one was certainly unfair.

  All of it was. Against these guys, the Way recognized more than just how difficult it was. They’d taken offence to him unfairly, unreasonably, and now they were hounding him for something that wasn’t his fault.

  As a spear rushed toward his back and an axe fell toward his shoulder, he twisted slightly, making it look like he’d just avoided the attacks—even if he could’ve dodged them with much more room to spare. The spear grazed the backs of his shoulderblades, threatening to rip his cloak, and the axe whistled past the tip of his nose.

  “Not so tough now, are you?” the third Scaleslinger demanded, rushing forward with a sword and shield. There were no half-measures—the man was aiming directly at Blake’s heart, regardless of tournament regulations.

  Before it could strike, he triggered the Serpent’s Cloak and blasted off, leaping over their heads and landing a few paces away.

  “Yeah!” one of them shouted. “Yeah, you run! Get out of here, scum!”

  Blake turned to all three of them and gave a quick salute, then said, “See you around.”

  “If you won’t fight us here—”

  “You’ll get your chances.” He grinned. “But one on one.”

  “We’ll make sure of it!” one of them yelled. “You’re not that strong! We can take you. My father is within tournament planning and he can change the bracket however he wants. You won’t be rid of the Scaleslingers, no matter how hard you try!”

  After tonight, everyone would underestimate him against the Scaleslingers. They’d think he had some reason he thought he was weaker than them. They’d bet against him, no matter how the odds looked. And it had better be enough to pay for that technique slate.

  He raced off into the fray at the center of the arena, hiding from the Scaleslingers, all while ducking and dodging and doing absolutely everything in his power to avoid the attacks of the other contestants.

  Finally, a horn sounded, signalling that the fight was over and that enough contestants had been eliminated.

  He’d made it into the true tournament. He’d qualified.

  Blake sprinted back to the changerooms as quickly as he could, trying to get ahead of the rush that he knew was coming.There were showers here, but he didn’t bother with them. He could clean himself when he got back to the Silk Fans’ compound.

  He retrieved his backpack, and found River waiting for him. He opened the bag for her, let her hop in, then sealed it and raced out of the arena. If anyone wanted to bother him, he needed to get out of here before they made a scene and forced him to show how strong he actually was.

  When he made it back to the front desk, a clerk flagged him down and said, “Your winnings, contestant. Name?”

  He winced, then rushed over to her. “Uh, Blake. I—”

  “Oh, I remember you.”

  “Oh?”

  She ran her finger down the list, then clicked her tongue and retrieved a single chunk of hacksilver, then placed it on the counter. “Don’t worry, it always gets better. This was just the qualifying round.”

  Blake chuckled. He was counting on it.

  But for now, he took the little chunk, nodded, then raced out of the arena lobby. For today, he had more important tasks.